


Laughing Solider

by orphan_account



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Friendship, Grief/Mourning, Past War, i wrote this to fuck my friend up, remember the korean war, yeah this is that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-23
Updated: 2016-04-23
Packaged: 2018-06-03 22:34:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6629698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The only stop, a block away from where he wished to be, was at a flower shop. The Canadian stopped there every year before visiting his friend, because despite how silly it was, he knew his friend would like the flowers he always bought him. It was tradition, and Matthew was a sucker for it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Laughing Solider

Despite not being near the best at Korean, Matthew tried. Sure, he knew he was unlikely to get anything beyond a basic grasp on the language, but he tried, and that was all that was expected of them all.  
Be they Francophone or Anglophone, they were here, all the way across the world in a nation that for all the beauty it was bound to hold, would never compare to their own.   
Nothing ever would, for them; there was only one Canada, after all, and it was theirs, the entire reason they were there. It was their fighting cause, their home. 

 

There was only one Canada, and it had been the reason Matthew; quiet, gentle Matthew who as stubborn a child as he had been, had never been one to pick fights, had signed on to fight. It was the reason he made sure the one part of his uniform that never was torn or messy was the flag, the name. Canada. A red maple on white, alike to the Japanese if not for the red that took both sides. It swelled his heart with pride to see, no matter the circumstance, and kept him sane by the memories it brought. 

 

That flag was the reason he found one of his closest friends in that war, yet it was another flag that took that. 

 

That flag was the reason he allowed himself to dip into memories, the reason he had let it touch the ground on the one occasion of it being his friend's resting place. 

 

It was not that flag that he saw, flying proudly in the gentle wind that the autumn brought, the first he had seen since the plane had crossed into South Korea, but it was just as familiar to him.

 

It was that flag, with it's lines and circles of colour that Matthew had seen the most of for a few years of his life that he did not wish to forget. It was that flag that had flown ever so proudly beside his own, the one he belonged to; and just as he belonged to the maple leaf, his friend had belonged to the ying-yang.

 

It was to people who didn't quite seem to see his reasoning for being there, amid people so many years younger than he was that he encountered, leaving the plane. So similar and familiar in nationality, in language, once or twice in hair. Never were any of them his friend.

 

Only once, on his way was he stopped, someone speaking broken English. Matthew didn't understand what they had meant-- their accent was too heavy, and he was too lost in how this city had looked years and years ago. How the sounds had been different, the sky, the sights, the people, the dress. All of it had been such a change, and truly it was intriguing.

 

Thinking of it, halfway to the graveyard, Matthew thought he should have dropped his suitcase at the hotel before now. He was older than he had been those years ago, not able to heft the multiple dufflebags he once had carried this similar distance. Matthew did not like that fact of getting older, not being as useful as he had been before, but he was not barely nineteen anymore.

 

He wasn't as fast as he had been then, his glasses were thicker (but not any less round), his face was still rather young looking, but lined with worry and age; his eyes were no less open, but a bit dimmer than before, just as once pale golden hair was beginning to take a more silver look near the roots. His great-niece always told him he should re-dye it, since he wasn't that old, but Matthew never did.

 

His height wasn't that different, though, even if his shoulders drooped a little-- they were still held up with the pride and quiet defiance they always had been. His weight had barely changed at all, still a twig despite it all, and the way he dressed wasn't that changed either; though granted his friend had mainly seen him in the Canadian military clothes. The way he held himself was no different than it had been when he was nineteen; quiet, but proud, and stubborn but kind-- thirty years had done nothing to change his mannerisms, ever the polite and reserved man as he had been those years ago.

 

If you were to see a picture of him then, Matthew mused, smiling at a little boy that bumped into him, you would see the way the years had tolled him. If you had known him then, and compared it to now, Matthew doubted there would be that much of a difference.

 

The only stop, a block away from where he wished to be, was at a flower shop. The Canadian stopped there every year before visiting his friend, because despite how silly it was, he knew his friend would like the flowers he always bought him. One bushel of them later, and he was on his way again, knowing he was in the present yet still reliving that first day he had been here.

 

Everything was still as wonderful as it had been then.

 

The only stop Matthew had left was to visit his friend, who was probably laughing at the fact that Matthew was here again, like he was every year.  
Matthew didn't mind that, though-- his friend always was laughing, always with a smile. Of course, there had been times when he hadn't been, but Matthew preferred to remember him with the smile, the laughter that had always accompanied anything the Korean solider did.

 

Letting his suitcase fall on the grass, silent as it always was—no reason to disturb a place of mourning and silence-- Matthew lowered himself to sit beside the stone-- he didn't understand what was on it anymore, but he knew the characters that meant his friend's name. 

 

Im Yong-Soo.

 

Matthew had always just called him Soo, though, and Soo had always just called Matthew by Matt. It had been easier for them both, having not spoken each other’s language well enough.

 

Matthew smiled, then, at the stone, and set the bushel of flowers down-- they were an odd combination, but Matthew always got his friend the two, a mix of rose of sharon and blue iris, because it meant home to them both. Letting out a slight sigh, the Canadian pulled a small flag out of his pocket, nestling it down to be protected by the flowers, but not enough to become invisible.

 

Soo had always been curious about his flag, and why it had a leaf on it of all things, and Matthew couldn’t blame him. He could never answer him, though, since why a maple leaf had become known to home he had never known; he’d only ever been proud of it. Never a question he’d raised about why a tree became his home’s symbol until Yong-Soo had.  
Then again, Matthew hadn’t thought of a lot of things until Soo brought them up, head always wilting to the side, and eyes crinkling into a smile that absolutely lit up the young Korean’s face. Any smile that kid had ever given had done that, or the real ones had, at least.

Even the fakes had had attempts—The only way Matthew would know they were fake was the fact that he’d found himself trying to comfort the other a few times. It made sense why, to be fair, considering most of everyone that had been there were barely old enough to enlist, and Soo had been about a year younger than himself—that had been a fun conversation, between a lot of them. Plenty in the dark, as good as they could be, or simply ones full of non-verbal jokes. Even in times in which they were on higher alert had been enough to spare smiles, and the both of the could remember turning to the other when worry took to their minds, the language barrier that had been irritating mments before a comfort that grounded them.

 

As he settled into the well worn hallways that those memories had been carefully nestled into, and Matthew decided that despite how cliché it all was, he didn’t care about the fact that his eyes were starting to water and blur. 

 

Soo’d never hidden tears, and Matthew didn’t see any reason to either; it was just a different reminder of laughter, and there was never such a thing to be less ashamed of.

**Author's Note:**

> SO, first of all-- I wrote this a while back, during class, so my history likely isn't as on-point as I'd like it to be, and secondly, I originally just wrote this to hurt my friend, since she planned the AU out with me. Unbeta'd, but if there's any mistakes please excuse them; I'm cleaning out my word docs, so putting more in here.
> 
> EDIT: I remembered a big fact that matters; from what I can gather, cremation is more popular in Korea? This is a graveyard for reasons, though, shhh.


End file.
